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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28474887">on the up and up</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceinvaderz/pseuds/gayvid7'>gayvid7 (spaceinvaderz)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stellar Firma (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Trans Female Character, character study i guess?, i am the ceo of giving funney characters sad backstories, listen the new episode gave me a lot of hartro thoughts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:36:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,769</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28474887</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceinvaderz/pseuds/gayvid7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>	The only Piltz child is born between a broom closet and a trash compactor, in a pod with metal walls and sharp edges, on one of the very lowest floors of Stellar Firma. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br/> <br/>Hartro Piltz has always done her best. She deserves to be here.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>on the up and up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi! i haven't stopped thinking about stellar firma for a month at least! and the new episode was really good and i think a lot about hartro's backstory especially in comparison/contrast with trexel's.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The only Piltz child is born between a broom closet and a trash compactor, in a pod with metal walls and sharp edges, on one of the very lowest floors of Stellar Firma. She is born in a home that is barely a home for her parents, but it will serve as a home for her too.</p><p>The only Piltz child doesn’t grow up with many friends. Her parents’ neighbors are mostly adults, tired and uniformed, who look rather similar under the dim flickering lights of the lower levels. Her mother tells her that Stellar Firma doesn’t like it when two employees of lower standing have children, and they try to limit it. “Are we breaking a rule?” she’d asked her mother, feeling worry form deep in the pit of her stomach, because even then, she hadn’t liked breaking rules. </p><p>Her mother had smiled, slightly, and stroked the top of her daughter’s head. “No, darling. But we should be careful.”</p><p>She is careful. She’s very careful. She’s polite to the glassy-eyed neighbors and doesn’t complain when she feels lonely in the quiet of her sharp-angled gray quarters, and doesn’t cause trouble (because why would she want to?).</p><p>For a while, the only Piltz child thinks that the lower floors are all that Stellar Firma is. She imagines a great brick, floating in space, all gray and sharp and rather unclean (but she’d never say that last part aloud, because that might be criticism, and her father works as a Janitorial Clerk and she’s sure he’s doing the best he can) and just as uniform as all of the people she’s met. </p><p>That changes her first day of school. </p><p>Her mother helps her change into a uniform of her own (this one is deep blue, and has a label on it reading STUDENT, and FILING TRACK underneath, but otherwise looks similar to the grays her parents wear), takes her hand, and leads her to a tube that, she’s told, will take her to one of the educational levels, where she will learn to be a proper citizen-employee. </p><p>And the only Piltz child looks out of the glass tube and sees <em> wonders.  </em></p><p>Buildings bedecked in glowing bright lights, humans (and non-humans!) in outfits of all colors, smooth white walls and glowing terminals and things that, to her, look straight out of what she imagines a fairytale to be. She imagines, for a minute, herself walking among them, tapping away at a tablet that holds important information about her very important work. People want to talk to her as they pass, and they nod delightedly at the marvelous smart things she has to say. She is a leader, and remarkable, and she always knows what to do.</p><p>As soon as the dream has started, it ends. </p><p>She arrives on a floor full of other children, all wearing the same uniform, and a thrill rushes through her since she’s never <em> seen </em>so many other children before. </p><p>She decides to introduce herself to one of them, a tall girl with magenta skin. She looks confident, important, the type of person who’s <em> going places, </em> as she once heard her father say.</p><p>The only Piltz child introduces herself, and she asks the other girl’s name. </p><p>“I’m Marlie,” she says, looking her up and down. “What do your parents do?”</p><p>This seems an odd question to begin a friendship with, but the only Piltz child doesn’t mind. “My dad’s a Janitorial Clerk, and my mum is a Filing Assistant,” she announces proudly. She only somewhat understands what these mean, but they sound nice.</p><p>Marlie’s upper lip curls a bit, and the shorter girl starts to get the feeling she hates, the feeling that means she’s done something wrong. <em> "Oh," </em> Marlie says. “<em>My </em>parents are senior Line Managers. I don’t think I should be talking to you.”</p><p>The only Piltz child decides not to mention that she doesn’t know what a senior Line Manager does, and instead watches Marlie walk away. A new feeling, similar but not identical to the last, is starting to curl its way through her. She thinks it’s shame.</p><p>School is mostly uneventful otherwise. The only Piltz child thinks she knows the answer to some of the questions the teacher asks, but she doesn’t raise her hand. She’s worried the teacher, or worse, one of the other students, will say something in that tone that makes her stomach hurt and her throat clench.  </p><p>When she gets home, she asks her mother why they live on the lower levels, and not up by the clean walls and flashing lights. </p><p>“Your father and I aren’t...well, important enough to live up there,” her mother sighs. “That’s for the high class employees.”</p><p>“Like Line Managers?”</p><p>“Well--yes,” her mother says, caught off guard. “Where did you hear about that?”</p><p>“School,” she says, and leaves it at that.</p><p>That night, she researches Line Managers on her father’s IMOGEN terminal, after her parents are asleep. She researches the upper levels, and learns the name of every career available to a prospective citizen employee. </p><p>The next day at school, she asks the teacher if she can rent a terminal of her own. She promises only to use it for the approved topics for education. </p><p>By the time she’s twelve years old, she has been moved from the Filing Track to the Consultancy Track.</p><p>She likes working with her hands--painting, sculpting, creating. She made a model of Stellar Firma once, based off the posters that hang in the hallways. It's large--almost up to her shoulders--and it takes most of her weight to lift. She's painted it metallic gray, with long black windows providing the upper levels a window outside. She shows it to her teacher, once, who smiles warmly and praises it.</p><p>"Have you ever considered being an Artistic Integrator?" they ask her.</p><p>She studies her hands, streaked with silver. "No. What are the benefits like? Do they work in the upper levels?"</p><p>Her teacher falters. "W--well, not usually, but--"</p><p>"I'm not really interested in things like that," she cuts them off. "Sorry."</p><p>She goes home and puts her paints and clay and crafts in a box that she shoves behind her bed and doesn't think about it (and <em>doesn't think about it).</em></p><p>She is fourteen now, staring at herself in her mother’s mirror while her parents are at work, and she thinks that she can do better.</p><p>She takes a pantsuit from the back of her mother’s closet. It’s bright pink, and she remembers her mother saying that it’s too colorful for a Filing Assistant. It might be just right for a Sales Consultant, though, or an Accounts Director, or maybe...maybe a Line Manager.</p><p>It’s too big on her, but if she rolls up the sleeves, she can imagine it fits her like it was made for her, custom tailored in a shop with plush purple couches. She paints her toenails red and imagines her hair being long enough to toss over her shoulder. </p><p>She names herself <em> Hartro, </em> after a Caernian word for <em> leader.  </em></p><p>She is sixteen and staying up late most nights, consuming caffeinated slurry and developing circles under her eyes that are assuredly not Line Managerish. <em> It’s all right, </em> she assures herself, <em> there’ll be plenty of time to rest once you’re at the top and everyone knows it. Just a little longer, and then they’ll all see, and nobody will make you feel ashamed ever again. </em></p><p>It’s not only school that keeps her up. Her father is stumbling home late more and more often, muttering nonsense and passing out at their kitchen table. Hartro is starting to understand why, despite having a Janitorial Clerk in the family, their quarters are rarely ever clean. </p><p>“I coulda been an engineer,” he grunts one night, as Hartro reads in the living room. “They moved me down here ‘cause I couldn’t get my grades up. Listen--” he points to her now, eyes struggling to focus-- “don’t you let that happen. I’ve seen your test scores, you could get out of here. Don’t mess it up, kid. You gotta keep working. You gotta--” he falls asleep here, the bottle in his hand crashing to the ground.</p><p>Hartro focuses on the alcohol, spilled liquor and broken glass, and hates it, fiercely, passionately, because it’s easier than hating her father. She knows he tried, hopes he tried, <em> needs </em>him to have tried. </p><p>If he didn’t try, then he’s just a loud, drunken idiot with no motivation and no aspirations, dragging everyone else around him down because he can only focus on himself, and then she’ll have to hate him.</p><p>She hates the alcohol instead, in his place. </p><p>By the time she turns seventeen, she’s been moved to the Management Track.</p><p>She sees Marlie as she's leaving the educational quarters one day, and notes that the label under STUDENT on her uniform, that once read EXECUTIVE TRACK, now reads LABOR TRACK. "Oh!" Hartro says, sickly sweet, as if she's just noticed it. "But I thought your parents were--ah, never mind, silly me, I must be forgetting things!"</p><p>She swallows the few twinges of guilt she feels upon seeing Marlie's face, and thinks of her quarters, and her desk piled high with empty cups and pages of notes, and reminds herself that she deserves to be here.</p><p>Years later, Hartro Piltz wakes up in quarters with clean white walls that she shares with no one but herself. She puts on a bright red pantsuit, tosses her hair behind her shoulder, and steps outside onto a floor lit with bright lights and crawling with dozens of species. A card hangs from her purse that proclaims her to be a Line Manager (and one of the youngest currently working, although she doesn’t like to brag).</p><p>She’s scheduled to meet with someone new today, a design consultant. She’s been assigned to him personally, in fact. He’s from a high-class family, which could explain it. She’s quite good with the higher-ups, now. Years of practice and research have taught her to schmooze like she was born with a silver shovel in her mouth. And the whole “managerial prodigy” thing does tend to spread, but like she said, she doesn’t like to brag.</p><p>She’s feeling quite good, all things considered, as she makes her way to the office of--she checks the brief she’s been given--T. Geistman. She’s got a spa appointment later at her usual place, and she might even treat herself to a pedicure. </p><p>Things are perfectly lovely for Hartro Piltz. </p><p>She can’t think of a single way that they could go wrong.</p>
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